Sensory Spice Painting Prayers!

I have to admit to liking a bit of incense every know and again.  Multi sensory prayers are my favourite thing and one of my favourite images in the Bible is of the smoke of the incense rising with the prayers of God's people in Revelation 8:4.  I love it when all of the senses get involved- but smell is pretty hard to achieve, especially as we have to be very careful if working with people who have asthma. After seeing some posts about painting with spices, I thought I'd have a go at applying it to prayer.  I wasn't disappointed!

This prayer activity works really well if you can get hold of some strongly coloured spices.  I would have loved to use some saffron, but it was a bit out of my price range. Turmeric worked really well for a yellow though!  

You will need: cupcake cases, water, spices- I used paprika, cinnamon, ginger, cumin and tumeric, paintbrushes, paper

Put about a tablespoon full of spice into each cupcake case (one spice per case).

Mix some water into the spice to make a paste. Gradually add water until you get a paintable consistency.

Ask children to paint their prayers for people and places or to say thank you to God in words and pictures.  Be ready for some wonderful spicy smells to rise up as they pray!